Mobile-based patient monitoring systems: a prioritisation framework using multi-criteria decision-making techniques

This study presents a prioritisation framework for mobile patient monitoring systems (MPMSs) based on multicriteria analysis inarchitectural components. This framework selects the most appropriate system amongst available MPMSs for the telemedicineenvironment. Prioritisation of MPMSs is a challenging task due to (a) multiple evaluation criteria, (b) importance of criteria, (c)data variation and (d) unmeasurable values. The secondary data presented as the decision evaluation matrix include six systems(namely, Yale–National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), advanced health and disaster aid network, personalisedhealth monitoring, CMS, MobiHealth and NTU) as alternatives and 13 criteria (namely, supported number of sensors, sensorfront-end (SFE) communication, SFE to mobile base unit (MBU) communications, display of biosignals on the MBU, storage ofbiosignals on the MBU, intra-body area network (BAN) communication problems, extra-BAN communication problems, extra-BAN communication technology, extra-BAN communication protocols, back-end system communication technology, intendedgeographic area of use, end-to-end security and reported trial problems) based on the architectural components of MPMSs. Thesecriteria are adopted from the most relevant studies and are found to be applicable to this study. The prioritisation framework isdeveloped in three stages. (1) The unmeasurable values of the MPMS evaluation criteria in the adopted decision evaluationmatrix based on expert opinion are represented by using the best–worst method (BWM). (2) The importance of the evaluationcriteria based on the architectural components of the MPMS is determined by using the BWM. (3) The VlseKriterijumskaOptimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) method is utilised to rank the MPMSs according to the determined importanceof the evaluation criteria and the adopted decision matrix. For validation, mean ± standard deviation is used to verify thesimilarity ofsystematic prioritisations objectively. The following results are obtained. (1) The BWM represents the unmeasurablevalues of the MPMS evaluation criteria. (2) The BWM is suitable for weighing the evaluation criteria based on the architecturalcomponents of the MPMS. (3) VIKOR is suitable for solving the MPMS prioritisation problem. Moreover, the internal andexternal VIKOR group decision making are approximately the same, with the best MPMS being ‘Yale –NASA’and  the worst